The Dagger Quick

Hello, Everyone,

Time out from my usual blogging to push a friend of a friend's book. The Dagger Quick by Brian Eames is just about to be published by Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books. You can see it here: http://www.amazon.com/Dagger-Quick-Brian-Eames/dp/1442423110/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289078510&sr=1-1

This is a very cool young person's novel by a very talented writer. It's only available for pre-order as of this date, but if you're looking for a gift for a son, daughter, nephew, niece, whatever, then I'd say that you'd be hard pressed to go wrong with this one.

cheers
mjt

A few words about robots

Hi, Everyone,

Well, I'm going to post here another one of the oped pieces I'm submitting to newspapers around the country. It's kind of a fool's errand 'cause, let's face it, newspapers are in pretty deep trouble at the moment. They've got way more pages than they've got ad revenue to support them, so farming out a few hundred words to a non-staffer (even if the aforesaid non-staffer is giving his stuff away for free) is a non-starter.

Still, because I'm stubborn, and not too damn bright, I keep trying.

This week I'm showing you something that I've been sending around only to newspapers in New England. That's cause I've given it a New England slant. But, frankly, that's a bit of a scam. What I say about New England here is true for the whole country.

Here's my schitick: I'm convinced that America is in serious trouble. I mean, BIG time trouble. I think that if we don't do something, and something dramatic, then we're in for very hard times.

I think MOST of our problems (but not all) stem from the economy. I think that we have basically lost the capacity to pay for our own needs.

Why? Two major reasons. Energy is number one. So long as we keep importing oil, and so long as oil keeps going up in price, everything gets a little more expensive every day. We are, in effect, slowly bleeding to death.

But problem number two, every bit as bad, is "de-industrialization"—that is, the process by which our economic elites moved all our industrial production overseas, and left the rest of us to rot.

I'm very serious about this. I am convinced that de-industrialization was the worst thing to happen to us as a society since the 1930s. Oh, we've had foreign wars that have been more destructive in terms of loss of life. But, if we restrict ourselves to just internal developments, then the loss of our industrial capacity (and the pay checks that went with it) is pretty darn awful. I'd say that in recent history, only the Great Depression can match it. And before that? Perhaps the Civil War.

Oh, and by the way, if things keep going as they are now, I'm not sure that the last Civil War will be the only one we'll ever fight.

So, I'm writing articles and oped pieces in which I try to encourage people to do what I think needs to be done to save the country. I know that sounds alarmist and fantastically arrogant, but…I'm saying it all the same.

And in particular I'm saying that we need to develop new, cheap forms of energy. I don't know what those will be (I'm a big fan of fusion myself, but I could be wrong), but whatever it is, we need them, and we need them very soon.

The other thing I think we need to do is re-industrialize. We need to build factories again.

Yes, I know that sounds insane. And I know also that when and if we build them, they probably won't employ as many people as the old, smokestack industries did. In fact, I suspect they won't employ many people at all. They'll be automated. We'll invest heavily in industrial robots.

But even so, automated industries will give us something to stand on. They'll provide the foundation on which the rest of our so-called "post-industrial" businesses will base themselves.

At least that's what I believe. For more of my logic and my arguments, I offer the piece I've pasted below.

Once you've read it, if you like, tell me what you think.

mjt




[head] The New New England and the Post-Post-Industrial Economy

[by] Michael Jay Tucker



I'm about to say something crazy.

Here it comes: New England can and should lead the nation in re-industrialization. Moreover, we should automate and invest massively in robots.

I warned you it would sound crazy. But, bear with me.

Everybody knows that America was once the leading industrial nation of the globe. Everybody also knows that it isn't any more. It was cheaper and easier to offshore. Which was fine because we thought we'd still have employment via service-based businesses. We thought everyone could be a white-collar worker in the post-industrial economy.

Except…now, it looks like we're in the post-post-industrial economy. Service businesses aren't hiring much and those that are aren't paying particularly well. Worse, as anyone who has ever called tech support can testify, we've found that service-based employment can itself be offshored.

So what do we do about it?

Answer: Re-industrialize. We build factories again…automated factories…using as many industrial robots as possible.

Why? First, because the technology is now available. Where, before, there was something a little bit science fiction about it, now we know how to automate plants to the nth degree. Japan has been using industrial robots to compensate for its aging workforce for decades.

Second, robots provide the ultimate in low-cost labor. They don't take raises and they don't want benefits. They would allow the nation to successfully compete with any labor force on earth, no matter how underpaid.

Third, because every time a robot manufactures something here, that's an item that's not manufactured overseas. So, the money required to produce it stays here, in the United States. That's a little mercantilist, yes, but, at the moment, we need every dime we can get.

Fourth, because while it is true that automated factories do not hire many people, they do hire some. More, they provide a foundation for the rest of the economy. They become or create clients for service-based businesses—everything from PR firms to design shops.

And, finally, now is the perfect time for it. A generation ago, mass automation would have been impossible. Unions would have quite rightly objected. But, now, most of our factories are already gone. The people who worked in them are already unemployed. We have nothing left to lose.

So, the time is now for America to become, again, a manufacturing nation.

And New England is where it should start. We already have expertise in the profitable production of robots, as witness I-Robot, Kiva Systems, and dozen recent startups in the field. And, we have the brainpower necessary. There are robotics labs in schools from Maine to Rhode Island. Given all of that, New England can and should take the lead.

Besides, it's fitting. New England was where industrialization began in America. And it was here, too, where America first de-industrialized, as mills fled to cheaper climes.

Now New England should guide the nation back…to industry, and to prosperity.

We've got a tradition to uphold.



#



Author's Bio



Michael Jay Tucker has been writing about science and technology since the early 1980s. He was on the staffs of such magazines as Mini-Micro Systems, Computerworld, UnixWorld, SunExpert, and Datamation. Today, he teaches English and History at Northeastern and Cambridge College.



Copyright © 2010 Michael Jay Tucker

The Tea Party's Gift

America owes a great debt to the Tea Party, conservatives, and the Right in general. They have given us the greatest gift of all— i.e., laughter.

Let us confess it…let us say it loud…they are greatest comedians of the century. Slapstick, low comic, pratfall, Three-Stooges-style, pie-in-the-face buffoons admittedly…. but comedians all the same.

Consider, just this week we had Joe Miller, that clown prince of Alaska, the man who's got a million of 'em, hold a public forum which he then announced was private and so his security detail jumped a local reporter and held him against his will, even though that was about as illegal as peddling methamphetamine lollipops and hash brownies down at your local PTA bake sale.

Then we get full-color pix and vids on youtube of the whole skit. And, by golly, there's Miller's goon-squad looking like a bunch of stubble-headed Matrix dwellers from Planet Zork. I mean, the costuming alone was brilliant!

But that wasn't all. Next we learn that the Death Star Storm-troopers are from a private security firm, Drop Zone Security Services, which…it turns out…doesn't have a license.

Ah, but hold on, that's not the punch line. 'Cause then we discover Drop Zone is owned by William F. Fulton, who also happens to be a local commander of the Alaska Citizens Militia, an ultra-right strong arm group. And, oh, by the way, the Alaska Citizens Militia's founder is Norm Olson, who previously founded the Michigan Militia…which, in turn, hosted a meeting which happened to be attended by Terry Nichols, the guy who helped the late Timothy McVeigh kill all those people in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Amazing! You'd need half a dozen sit-coms plus several years' worth of soap operas to come up with a plot this convoluted. Yet the Right invents it all without even breaking a sweat. I stand in awe.

But, mind you, we're not talking any one hit wonder. These people manage this kind of comedy consistently. Every day! Why, think about Christine O'Donnell, Delaware's Tea Party/Republican/Nutcase candidate for Senate. Consider how she proclaimed in the middle of a debate, "Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?" And, oh! The way she said it! With that utterly adorable little look of absolute bewilderment! You could almost think she really meant it. Not even the great female comedians of the twentieth century, like Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot, did it any better.

And there are so many others—Sharon Angle and her "Dearborn's Dominated By Muslims" shtick (which I think is every bit as good as Jeff Foxworthy's "You May Be A Redneck"), and Jan Brewer with her sure-fire "Illegal Aliens Are Going To Get Your Mama."

So, all in all, I adore these people. They just keep getting funnier every time. But, I do have a small critique. I think their acts could use just a little tuning.

So, here's my message to 'em: Guys and Gals on the Right…you know I love your work…but pull back, just a little, from complete craziness. Because, if you don't, well, you come off as a total maniac. And that's not funny.

In fact, it's damn close to terrifying.

What Isn't Being Said

Hello, Everyone,

I'm shopping a shorter version of the material below to op-ed pages at various newspapers. So far, no one has taken the bait. But, you never can tell…

In the meantime, here it is, submitted for your approval.



[head] What isn't being said

By Michael Jay Tucker





It is what they don't say that freaks me out.

I mean the debate in Washington (and everywhere else) on the current Recession. Like you, and probably like everyone else in America, I've been watching while Right, Left, and Center battle about it. It's rather awe-inspiring, really. Economists and scholars and pundits and people who look really, really good on Fox TV are slugging it out big time, and all of knows exactly What Is To Be Done.

But, have you noticed? They all disagree with one another, very loudly. Some of them invoke Ayn Rand, others Baron Keynes, but no matter what their ideological orientation, they are united on a single premise. To wit, they hold the Recession is (for lack of a better word) a managerial issue. Their underlying assumption is that the crisis was brought about by unwise policies on the part of someone in office—the Republicans under George W. Bush by failing to properly police Wall Street, or the Democrats under Barack Obama through deficit spending (which seems somewhat improbable, given that Recession began before Obama's election, but that's beside the point).

But, this is followed by an equally fascinating corollary—i.e., that having been created by one set of policies, the Recession can be made to go away again by the imposition of another, wiser set. Once we reduce taxes or increase them, introduce more regulation or less of it, things will "get back to normal."

In other words, everyone in the debate—everyone!—seems to hold that our current crisis is subject to bureaucratic pressure, and that the proper group of experts could end it by changing the regulatory environment of the economy.

That's comforting, because it seems to give us the power over our situation. We just keep trying to various solutions on offer—Republic, Democratic, Tea Party, Socialist Workers, whoever—until one of them works. And surely, they can't ALL be wrong. Can they?

But…what if they are? All wrong, that is.

What if the Recession has nothing to do with policy? What if it in fact reflects material, structural problems in the nation as whole? And nothing we can do—no matter who's Chairman of the Fed, no matter how much we fiddle with capital gains or impose new regulations on Wall Street—is going to change things? What if, in short, we're screwed?

For instance, let's talk about energy costs. There are other problems as well (like de-industrialization) but, for the moment, let's just stick with energy.

It doesn't take a genius to notice that energy costs have been going up consistently for the last half century.

Which is a problem, because our society is based on fuel. Consider food. Any time you eat, you eat fossil fuels. You were able to ease your hunger because our society has the oil, gas, coal, or whatever to power the pumps that irrigate our fields, the tractors that harvest our crops, the trucks and trains that carry that food to our cities, and the freezers and stoves that we use to preserve and cook it. Oh, and by the way, once we've eaten it, we need still more pumps, and still more energy, to carry it all away again…or else we drown in our own sewage.

Which means, in turn, that each time energy costs go gone up, so too does the cost of everything we use that energy to produce, refine, transport, or prepare. Which is pretty much everything. And, so, every time energy costs go up, we get a little poorer.

And, it has only just begun. You can argue about whether we've reached "peak oil production," but what is undeniably true is that we've pumped out all the oil that was easy, safe, and convenient to get. From now on, we're going to get our fuels from places that are hard to reach, politically unstable, or just flat out dangerous. Oil is going to go get more expensive, and everything else is too.

And there's absolutely nothing we can do about it.

Not…that is… until we can push energy prices back down.

I'm not sure how we're going to do that. Maybe we'll invent a 100% efficient solar cell. Maybe we'll get clean nukes. Maybe we'll finally get fusion power up and running. But, until we do, things are going to be hard. We will only know the sort of prosperity we knew in the 1950s and the 1960s when the cost of energy is, again, measured in fractions of cents, rather than multiples of dollars.

Which is what scares me. Nothing I've said here is a secret. We all know this.

But, have you heard anyone say it? I mean, among the People Who Know Best? Our Leaders? Our elites? Have you heard any of them say, "Here's the grim reality: if we are to survive, we must invest in alternatives to fossil fuels. It is going to take time and money. We will have to develop basic technologies and build considerable infrastructure. We will solve the problem eventually, but it may be twenty years before we even start to see results, and over that period there were be far fewer resources to do other things. It isn't going to be pleasant, but that's the choice we've got."

No. We haven't heard them because they haven't said it.

I certainly haven't heard them say this. And that scares me to death. Because someone…some man or woman among them…needs to say these things to us, and needs to say them soon.

The alternative, and I fear it is all too likely, is that we awaken one morning to discover that the sun, in fact, has not arisen. And we are condemned, forever, to that famous darkling plain, wondering only which ignorant army will claim us next.







Copyright © Michael Jay Tucker 2010

Out Of My League

You may have noticed that I've not commented on Christine O'Donnell, the Republican –qua-Tea Party– qua anti-masturbation-qua-witchcraft candidate for Senate from Delaware.

Perhaps you've wondered why I've been so silent.

Well, because…blush, stammer…I'm outclassed. She's already so weird that, um, well, there's no way I can make fun of her. She's already delivered, and exceeded, any punch line I could invent.

Sigh.

Guess she's just WAY outta my league.


*

But I am kinda mad at her. I mean, she's just soooo easy.

I wanna snarl at her something like, "For Christ's sake, woman. Stop handing it out for free. At least make Jon Steward work a little bit for his money."

*

Darker thoughts.

I also haven't commented on her, and a lot of other stuff, partly because everyone else already had. She'd been all over the blogsphere, and more important, she'd been all over the mass media.

Which meant that by the time I could get something written and posted, the rest of the world would have moved on to some other concern. Anything I said would already be old news.

But, increasingly, that's true for all of us. In the age of the Internet and cable TV, ordinary people (that would be me) can no longer really comment on major events or issues. By the time we become aware of them, the video pundits, the sponsored bloggers, the Think Tank Op-Eders, and Others Who Know Best have already swarmed over it, stripped it to the bone, digested it, and excreted their so opinions thoroughly that we don't have a ghost of a chance.

Any ideas we might had have on our own…well…sorry. Individual opinion is obsolete.

*

This shouldn't be news to any of us.

When the net first came out, it took the media by surprise, and a number of writers, bloggers, filmmakers, etc. could slip into the gap. But, now, the networks have gotten their Internet act together and moved in. For any ordinary blogger, like thee and me, there are a hundred others with high profile sites supported by established media outlets and content producers.

Thus the reality of American discourse. Our elites happily give us free speech…because, of course, they know no one will listen.

finished draft of three chapter

Just finished the next-last-draft (probably) of the New Mexico section. It is now three chapters and about 90 pages long.

Argh.

I'll try to post some of it later for comments.

A moment of silence

I didn't post about 9-11. I won't post now about it.

I won't because I feel sometimes that the whole, horrible thing has been lost from public view. We no longer discuss the event itself, if we ever did. Instead, we use it. The Right uses it to demonize Muslims (and thus, in the process, strike at their real target, American Liberals). The Left uses it to object to America's Middle East policy (and thus, in the process, strike at their real target, American Conservatives).

Only the Middle makes no sound.

Which is very much to the credit of the Moderates (and increasingly, I admire them). After all, someone must remember the dead…and observe a minute of silence…when, it seems, no one else will bother.

First they came

I have recently become aware of the movement led by some hard right Republicans and others to make being a Muslim a crime in America. I had not heard of this one until I caught it on TV.

I was stunned—it is, after all, a direct assault on freedom of religion in America. But, what I found fascinating was that some of the people behind the movement are Jewish.

That seems odd. Oh, I can understand it, what with the threat to Israel and all, and the more or less open incorporation of crude, Nazi-style anti-Semitism in Jihadist ideology. Yet, even so, to make a religion illegal in America…? Do we really want to set that precedent? And who would be next?

First they came for the Muslims…

*



Another thing that fascinates me is how many of the most energetic leaders of the current anti-Muslim movement are, in fact, young, conservative women. By that I don't mean the old faithfuls…Palin, Ann Coulter…but rather a harder edged bunch, people like blogger Pam Geller, who combines Ayn Rand with anti-Islamic activism, and Laurie Cardozza-Moore, who led the opposition to that mosque in Tennessee. (Carodozza-Moore later got her fifteen minutes of fame, and more, by appearing in the Daily Show's coverage of the story.)

Note to feminists.

You've worked for decades to get women into politics…to "feminize power."

Well…

Was this really what you had in mind?


*

BTW, you can see more on Carodozza-Moore's time on the Daily Show here:

huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/26/the-daily-show-mosque_n_695329.html

*

I suppose I'll take some heat for my comment on the move to make Islam a crime in America. It is, after all, fairly unlikely. It is the kind of thing that a few fringe figures suggest to get a few headlines…and then gets promptly and properly forgotten.

Yet, I do worry. You see, at least some reports seem to suggest that similar ideas are reasonably common in the theoretically mainstream Tea Party Movement (see, for example, here: www. huffingtonpost.com/ahmed-rehab/tea-party-official-corres_b_693579.html).

Which, as I say, makes me worry. Fringes are not fixed. They tend to move about at the gentlest puff of wind. I feel some real terror that I may some morning awaken to find this baring down on me, like the Flying Dutchman, or the ghost ship in The Ancient Mariner…

Cursed, inexplicable, crewed by wraiths and furies…and impossible to escape.

teaching

I start teaching again this week.

Argh.

Note to students: you dread the end of summer. I've news for you. We're just as blue about it.

Least it gives us an interest in common.

New Mexico Chapter...again

Have decided to break up the New Mexico chapter into two or more chapters, and to do something similar with the other sections of the book (not one chapter on New York but two, etc.)

Now all I have to do is rewrite the proposal and the outline to reflect that. And sell the agent on the idea.

Argh. Argh. Argh.

New Mexico Chapter...

Still fighting the New Mexico Chapter. It is now 35 pages long and not half finished. I have to figure out some way of shortening it without losing it in the process. Again, wish me luck.

Professors and Hell: III

A confession….

I am a rationalist. But, there is a deep, dark, infantile part of me that can't quite help believing in magic, and particularly curses. That part of me feels, wholly irrationally, that some people can, somehow, reach through the ether or whatever and harm others…their malevolence projecting across space-time like some toxic radiation.

And I must further confess that the same, childish part of me feels their malice. It feels, or pretends to feel, their hatred, projecting across a higher dimension.

To reassure that childish part of me, I envision a wall constructed there…in that higher dimension…made of some weightless but impenetrable material, not constraining or immobilizing me but psychically opaque to them …existing between them and me and shielding me from their enmity, or even reflecting it back in their direction.

It is, as I say, childish and irrational. But…the child … or the Id…is powerful. If its conception of the universe is not proved by evidence or logic, then at least it can be comforted in moments of distress. Better the Wall than drinking.



*

I wonder, now that you have read about my Wall, and perhaps envisioned it, will your energies add to its strength?

Whether it does or not, if you now wish to also envision my three professors having public diarrhea or otherwise being humiliated and discomforted while in full view of large numbers of people…

Well, feel free. And with my blessing.

Professors and Hell: II

Just re-read the entry from a while back about hell and professors. Should I have followed my own advice in dealing with the committee of that program from which I was forced to leave? Which, I suppose, is another way of asking to what degree did their personal animosity and not their professional concern direct their actions?

At first, I wasn't certain that it had at all. I thought that it had been entirely my fault. (And I am, admittedly, a difficult person at times.)

But then I remembered an interesting incident. The head of the program was a large and billowing man who was a noted authority in a particular field. I'll not identify him, just as I will not name the other two members of my committee, but suffice to say that he was well known and something of a star in the academic world.

I had admired him, at first. I thought he was quite remarkable…though I found his comments on my papers less than useful. He had a great dislike of anything smacking of informality, or indeed of popular culture. Once, when I compared a certain nineteenth century figure to a video game developer he just about took my head off.

But I thought we were on good terms…or at least, functioning professional terms, until my two other committee members sent me a letter telling me that they refused from hence forward to work with me on my Ph.D. Dissertation. On the advice of my mentor at another university, I then sent this man an email saying that I seemed to have inadvertently alienated these two committee members and asking him what was now possible.

He wrote back an angry note in which he said he could not believe that anyone on my committee was refusing to work with me for any personal reason. Rather, he said, I had failed to understand the nature of "genuine scholarship."

Much later, when I had left the program, I began to be a bit suspect of his disinterest. I remembered that in my email to him I had said that I had alienated my other committee members, but I hadn't accused them of any personal animosity. You can be alienated from someone, particularly in a professional setting, yet not hate them as an individual.

Why, then, had he been so quick to assume that was what I meant? Why had he been so eager to defend himself, and the other committee members, from an accusation which I had not actually made?

Maybe… maybe because…because it was true? Because personal animosity WAS part of the equation? Because their treatment of me WAS unfair and unjust, and very personal? And he knew it? And he attacked me before I could raise the possibility? Did he, in other words, protest too much?

The more I've thought about it over these past few years, the more I've wondered if that wasn't exactly the case. Of course I cannot say for certain, much less prove it, but I've begun to suspect my exit from that particular university was as much a product of their personal dislike as it ever was of my failure to practice "true scholarship."

And the source of that dislike? Why they hated me? Well, who can say? But, I'm guessing it was precisely the thing that I found offensive in my own students: that I was not sufficiently deferential. As I admitted before, I can be a difficult person, and I have the habit of saying openly (and with force) what it would be wiser not to say at all—that such-and-such a book is badly written, that so-and-so is a pompous and vapid idiot, that this-or-that idea is politically correct but utterly foolish.

In other words, I suspect I did not properly pucker before the proffered asses. And this, alas, spelled my demise.

Which means I'm confronted with a disturbing question. How do I tell my own students not to do what I do, but rather tell their professors what they want to hear?

Or, to put it another way, how do I explain that Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, with all its pettiness and cruelty, is actually terrifyingly understated?

accomplishments

Still working on the book. A while back, I even told my parents about it. I even sent them a couple of chapters to read. They liked them. Or at least said they did.

It was not easy for me to reveal my work to my mom and dad. It is very unlike me. I never show anyone my material, or talk about it, until after it is finished.

But, this time, I didn't do that. This time, I emailed it to them. I suppose it was because they are getting on in years, and a part of me desperately wants them to know that I'm not just fooling around…that I'm really writing something that might be important…that I might, finally, get published. And not just by technical magazines. But published by real publishers that someone other than a few engineers and public relations people might read.

I want to make them proud of me, at last, while they're still here.

There's something sick in that. They already ARE proud of me. Or, so they've told me, anyway.

But, I simply cannot believe them. I cannot believe I deserve their pride. Or anyone's. Least of all my own. My accomplishments seem too few. My failures too many.

As I say, it is sick. Neurotic. But, come, confess, you have felt the same way now and then. We all have.

It is what we feel the moment we realize that aspiration remains as boundless as ever, but life…our own or that of others…is finite.

Copyright © 2010 Michael Jay Tucker

starting work on New Mexico

Tomorrow I plan to start work on my chapter about New Mexico. I'm intimidated. Difficult subject for me in general and, in some ways, I'm still finding my way into this project. Worse, I find myself unmotivated after just finishing long weeks of teaching.

Wish me luck…or at least energy.

professors and hell

8:00 am -- Getting ready for work. A little worried. I have to confront two students on the quality of their work. It is a difficult problem because on one level there is work is just fine. On the other, it is impossible.

Let me explain. Most of my students this term are Chinese. They came to the US for a special three term program which, if they pass it, gets them into a certain American University as a freshman, no questions asked.

These two young women are good students, in their way. But, they come into class and zone out. They do homework for other classes, flirt with the boys, talk to each other…

When they turn in their work, it is usually pretty good. They do halfway decent essays on American history. But, there's the rub. The essays are based entirely on what they learned in high school in China. Everything they write is from a strictly Chinese perspective. In fact, even their exams sound as though they were carefully copied, word for word, from a very Marxist Chinese textbook. Thus, the U.S. Civil War was a clash between progressive elements from the American bourgeoisie and reactionary Southern feudalists. The Cold War was a conflict between Russia and America, in which China was simply a bystander, except when forced to protect itself from U.S. imperialism in the Korean War.

And there's nothing particularly wrong with writing in this way. But, there is nothing of me in it, either. There is no sign that they have heard my lectures, read my notes, or even looked at the assigned readings. It is as though they have somehow been wholly absent from my class.

So, I face the interesting problem of explaining to them that their work is good…but it is also good evidence that they have spent four months ignoring me.

1:00 pm—now back. The students were humble, even contrite, when I talked to them about the problem. I encouraged them to, in future, actually include material from their classes in their homework.

I wonder if they will follow my advice. Alas, they seem to me the sort of person more likely to smile and say yes, while continuing to do exactly what they had done before.

For their sake, I hope I'm wrong. They are about to begin their freshmen year, and, once in "real" college, they will encounter many professors who are far less tolerant than I am.

Simply put, academics are a lot like lovers. They can forgive an honest error. But, ignore them…?

Hell hath no fury.

grading

Summer term is coming to an end. I've graded all the book blue books for one class and about half of them for another. I still have just under 40 research papers to read, and 18 short reports from yet another class.

Students, of course, dread finals and papers and other assignments. But you have no idea how much we, your instructors, share your terror.

he has never heard of the Algonquin Round Table

My editor continues to intrigue me. I discovered that he has never heard of the Algonquin Round Table.

If you haven't heard of it, don't worry. There is no reason why you should. It was a group of writers, wits, critics, and editors who regularly met around a "round table" at the Algonquin hotel in New York in the 1920s. Their number included Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott, Robert Benchley, Franklin Pierce Adams, Heywood Broun, and so on. In their time, they were very famous. Though, today, they tend to be little known. Alas, they wrote and talked about their own times, and…like all those who address their present…sometimes fail to reach their future.

But that HE hadn't heard of them is astonishing. It means that he made it through English classes at several prestigious prep schools, as well as an important American college, and never once had his instructors refer to them. That's unnerving, because they were important. They helped establish the modernist style, and any time you read creative non-fiction today, you read something that was directly affected by the Round Tablers.

Yet, under the direction of his professors, my friend was ignorant of them. Moreover, he was clearly irritated when I mentioned them in my chapter on New York City, as though he suspected me of inventing them, or of wasting the reader's time with someone impossibly obscure.

Concerns me. I wonder who else has been, or will be deleted from the public memory by the academic elite? By Those Who Know Best? Will my children's children be permitted to read Shakespeare, Jane Austin, George Sand, Charles Dickens, Edger Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Henry James, Edith Wharton, George Orwell, William Faulkner, Truman Capote…?

All these were, of course, writers of genius. But they did not address the concerns of full professors (with tenure). Ergo, they are not worthy of study, and shall be cast into the outer darkness, unlamented, and unremembered for all eternity.

just the two of us...

More on the young editor with whom I work…

As a person, I like him very much, and I think he is a talented writer in his own right.
But, in some ways he is the wrong man to work with me. For one thing, he is very young, and like a lot of young people who have recently graduated from the best of American schools, he has been taught to believe that the author has no right to appear in his own works. In other words, the letter "I," is forbidden. To write "I thought," or "I believe," or "I felt," or even "I experienced" is considered most offensive.

Yet, I am at my best when I am most self-referential. At heart, I am a diarist, a journalist (in the original meaning of the word, in the sense of one who keeps a personal journal), and, yes, a blogger.

Thus I am troubled. I fear that if the book gets published, it will actually be inferior to what I write about it…that what follows the title page will be less than what appears here, in Xcargo…to be know only to a few. By, in other words, I who write this, and you …you few and dear …who read it.


*

Actually, on looking at that last sentence, I feel an odd comfort. There are not many people who have read Xcargo from its beginnings as an ezine to its present status as an odd entry in the blogsphere.

There is something pleasant in that. In your presence, my readers, I feel that I am in a very select group…among friends… even something akin to family.

How rare a thing that is. I am grateful.

a million monkeys

You're recall I'm writing a book on American travel. One of the things which troubles me about the process is that my agent has put me to work with a young editor.

This is new for me. I have worked with editors before, but not one employed by an agent. It seems that in the new world of modern book publishing, the publishing company doesn't do much editing. In fact, I'm told that it does very little other than purchase the right to distribute a document that is largely already (as we used to say) "camera ready," that is, ready to go directly to the press.

The model now seems to be rather like that of the movie industry, where "movie companies" basically don't make movies. Rather, they obtain the rights to films that have been produced, created, and even financed by other firms.

I'm not sure this is a good thing. What does it say about us that the corporations that, in theory, determine our literature could (in theory) actually be staffed entirely by illiterates? Or the proverbial million monkeys, picking manuscripts at random?

tests

Just got back from teaching class. It went well enough, but I'm giving them their final blue book exam in the morning. I'm always on edge about that. Sometimes I think I care more about my students doing well on their tests than they do. I know that if they fail my test, then it is because I have failed them. Thus, their F is evidence of my inferiority.

Getting Back

So I'm back. I've been trying to get the time and the energy to post to Xcargo again for ages. But, well, I just haven't had either.

Here's the story: as you know, I am (among other things) a writer. Recently, I've managed to sign with an agent. That's a hard thing to do. It used to be said that it was easier to get a book published than it was to get an agent to represent it. I'm not sure it is still true (book publishing is a very strange business) but, still, I'm delighted that I have finally gotten—as they say—"representation."

I'm working on a book for the agent that is basically a travel essay combined with a popular history of several major regions in the United States. (I'll tell you more about it as time goes on.) She is very optimistic about it. I wish I were as confident.

Right at the moment, I'm doing my research on the American Southwest, one of the areas I'm going to be writing about. It isn't going to be easy for me. I grew up, of course, in Albuquerque, and that city (along with Santa Fe) will play a major role in the chapter. And, frankly, I have mixed feelings about the place. It was the town in which I experienced a very unhappy adolescence—and before that a not terribly much more pleasant childhood.

Oh, I love Albuquerque …in my way… and there are parts of the city that are beautiful and fine. Yet, I cannot escape the fact that it is also the place where I spent a lot of time being lonely, or bored, or afraid, or sick…or some combination of all those things at once.

I suppose, in a way, it is a little bit like being the child of some very lovely, very gentle mother…who, now and then, exploded into murderous fury. A woman not evil, but subject to a kind of unhappy madness…

One can never forget the loveliness and the gentility. But, neither, can one escape the memory of the madness.

Copyright © 2010 Michael Jay Tucker

"Stupid is as stupid does"

Hi, Everyone,

So, like everyone else in the known universe, I've been watching with horrified fascination while oil spills out into the Gulf, creating what could be the single worst environmental disaster of the decade. And, also like everyone else in the known universe, I've been watching with a similar sick fascination while everyone involved points the finger at everyone else. The government says it was the fault of British Petroleum…who says that it was the fault of the company that actually owned the rig, Transocean…who says that it was the fault of a contractor…specifically Halliburton.

It is the last one that's most interesting, of course. Halliburton is the company that used to be headed up by Dick Cheney (i.e., the power behind the Dubya's tottering throne). It was also the company that then went eagerly overseas, remaining incorporated in America but shifting most of its management functions to the United Arab Emirates…a move which made economic sense, but which was a PR disaster. It looked for all the world as if the company were wearing a huge sign that read, "F*ck you, America."

And now Halliburton is involved in an incident which may make the Exxon Valdez look like a tea party…and I'm not talking about the kind where Sarah Palin provides the opening remarks.

So, the question we have to ask, is this just bad luck? Could any company possibly be so often in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or is the company really part of a satanic conspiracy to degrade the environment and overthrow democracy?

Naturally, that's not really a question. There is no satanic conspiracy to degrade the environment and overthrow democracy. Halliburton has just been unlucky.

In other words, it is the corporate analog of Forrest Gump's evil twin. On steroids. With oil rigs.


Onward and upward.



Copyright © 2010 Michael Jay Tucker

New Mexico #10

New Mexico #10! (It's finally over)


Hello, Everyone,

Well, believe it or not, really and truly, I'm going to get back to doing Xcargo. What's more, I'm even going to try to finish the New Mexico series I started way back last year.

No. Really. Would I lie to you…?

Okay, don't answer that one.

But, this time …at least…I'm gonna be almost halfway truthful. Which is a rare thing in this life. Think politics. So, enjoy it while you can. It's rare thing. Supplies are limited. Operators are standing by.


*

Okay, you'll recall that we went to visit my parents last spring. You'll recall, too, that they live in New Mexico. They're getting on a bit, now, but they're hale and healthy. Though…it's a good idea for us to check in now and then.

Now, there are a bunch of complicating factors in all this. First, Martha and I both teach. That means we have a pretty narrow window during which we can travel. Specifically, we had about a week between when the spring classes we taught ended and the summer classes we taught began.

Oh, but there's more. Not only did we have to get back in time to teach, we also had to be back in Massachusetts no later than the evening of Saturday, 16 May. That was because on Sunday morning, 17 May, Tufts University had its graduation. And Martha teaches at Tufts. And it is a command performance for Tufts faculty members to be at the students' graduation. Or else heads would roll. Okay, so maybe they don't really roll. I'm told the ears get in the way. So, maybe, just bounce.

But, still more complications. Our son, David Tillman, was ALSO graduating from his college…the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in downtown Boston…ALSO on Sunday, 17 May, but in the afternoon.

And we are damn certain we're not going to miss our kid's graduation.

So, let's get this clear, shall we? If we miss a connection, or if we are delayed, or if anything goes even slightly wrong…

All hell breaks lose.



*


So, we have a nice visit with my parents over the course of a week. Then, it is time for us to head back to Boston. Ergo, one bright morning, we head off to the Albuquerque airport…shed several tears saying good-by…endure the attentions of some particularly hostile Homeland Security types…stumble through a full-body scanner… that malfunctions…twice…think MRI machine with hiccups…and then find ourselves on the plane.

Well, we think, that wasn't TOO bad. Should be home in no time, we decide. Probably won't be a bit of bother, we conclude.

Then…

We wait.


*

And wait.


*


And wait. And wait. And wait…


*


See a theme developing here?


*


Someday. When it is all done and said. When I'm dead. And have been for several years…

They're going to invent a super-futuristic train like the ones they used to have pictures of in Popular Mechanics Magazine when I was a kid. The kind that flash through big plastic tubes. At hypersonic speeds. And get you from Santa Fe to Boston in half an hour. Tops. And there's a free lunch.

You betcha. They will.

And, to repeat, I'll be dead at the time.

BECAUSE I will have had a brain aneurism while sitting on A GODAMN PLANE IN SOME FREAKING AIRPORT …


*

I heard later it was something to do with weather someplace else in the country. Or maybe it was a mechanical problem. Or maybe it was gnomes in the jet air intake manifolds. That’s probably the most sensible explanation. But, I really couldn't say. All I know is that we sat there wilting like lettuce on a flab burger in a microwave while pilots cursed, passengers went ballistic, and the stewardi developed that frozen-faced botox smile that comes just before you consider jumping face forward into a document shredder because it would hurt less than living.

So…

I'll spare you the next few hours. Suffice to say that finally we get into the air. Then, after an uneventful flight (well, except for the turbulence…and the overcrowding…and $7.50 snack packs…and the really, Really, REALLY lousy in-flight movie) we arrived at another city where we were supposed to get our connecting flight.

Now, understand, we'd already missed our FIRST connecting flight, but they'd rebooked us a second connecting flight. Which, we figured, we could catch without a problem because there was a 30 minute gap between the time we landed and the time we were supposed to take off again.

So…we "deplaned" (thank you George Carlin), wrestled our luggage into motion, and headed off to our next gate. And, wonder of wonder! It turns out to be only a few yard away.

We arrive at our next gate. Martha sends me off to get coffee since we've got a bit of time and we settle down until they call our seat numbers.

And…

Then we notice something.

"Say," Martha says.

"Yes?" I answer, because I'm good that way.

"Have you looked out the window?"

"Um," I say, intelligently.

"Have you noticed that there doesn't seem to be a PLANE out there?"

"Eh," I say, insightfully.

"So, maybe," she continues, "you might like to, that is, check at the desk."

"Uh," I conclude.

"As in NOW," she adds.

"Er…okay."

So I trotted up to the desk, where a couple of women in company uniforms were sorting large piles of little bits of paper and diligently ignoring me. They clearly planned to finish the first activity in short order…but continue the other to the end of time. Maybe longer. But, by pretending to be about to have a major psychotic episode, I eventually managed to get their attention.

"Oh," they told me. "There was a gate change. Your plane is now at…" and then they named a gate that was another terminal on the other side of the airport.

"Urk," I said.

"We suggest," they said, "that you start running."


*

Okay, insert here a slapstick comedy of the two of us, dashing through the terminal, luggage going in all directions, coffee cups flying, scattering other passengers, knocking over little old ladies, running baggage carts off the road, going the wrong way, doing a U-turn, running back the other way, knocking over the same little old ladies…

I'd describe it in more detail, but, really, words fail me.

*

Further complication: at this particular airport, transportation between the various terminals is provided by an automated little "people mover." It is kind of like a trolley car crossed with an elevator that happens to go sideways as the result of an unfortunate inner-ear condition.

So, that means we have to catch the People Mover or we're not going anywhere. And, amazingly enough, we actually do find a station and we actually do catch one of the little People Mover trains and it actually is moving in the right direction.

We check the time. We can JUST make it.

I look at Martha. She looks at me. "Whew," we say.

And then …


*

It was between Terminal A and Terminal B…

Almost exactly half way between them, to be exact.

And that …

Was when…

We came to a complete halt.


*


There was a crunching noise. Then a kind of tinkle. Then a grinding sound. Then a lurch. Then a bump. Then…

Nothing.

Everybody on the little train looked at each other. Then we looked out the window. We were on a kind of bridge arcing between the two terminals and over the highway. The ground was about three stories below us.

It was about then that we noticed the buzzards. They seemed to be circling the airport. Directly above our little car. And they were smiling. And putting out condiments.


*

Again, I'll spare you all the details. Just repeat the section about being stuck on the tarmac at Albuquerque. Except make it a little shorter. And there aren't any pilots or stewardi. Because the People Mover is automated. And that means there's no one to complain to…or to tell that you're stuck…which means that you wonder if anyone is ever going to notice that you're trapped and you'll end up eating each other...that is, if the buzzards referenced above don't get their first…

*


After a rather long time, the People Mover started, well, moving people again. We arrived at our station, scrambled out, and finally arrived at our gate. There, a charmingly snotty woman told us we were late, and that the plane had left a long time ago, and that since it hadn't been the airline's fault that we were delayed, she really didn't need to put us another plane…

It was then that I stopped pretending to have a psychotic episode and started working on having a real one. They told me later it was quite colorful. Literally. I turned green with purple polka dots and pink stripes. I couldn't say myself. I blacked out after growing the third eye and the second horn.

But it did get us on another plane.


*

Okay, long story short, we finally get home at about three in the morning. We drive home, fall into bed, and go to sleep.

Now, a sort time later, along comes Sunday morning and the day of the two graduations. Martha goes off to hers at Tufts and comes back a little after noon. We then get ready and head out to David's.

Further complication: David's school is downtown. We live in the 'burbs. This means that if we took the car, we'd have to drive in, find parking, pay for parking, and otherwise deal with a lot of difficulties. So, logically, we decided to "take the T."

The "T" is the Boston-area subway and transit system. It ranges from buses to full-fledged trains and is almost always…almost ALWAYS…quite reliable. The trains and buses and subway cars just keep on running…regularly as clockwork. Most of the time.

So, you know, of course, that there'd be NO problem with our taking the subway into town.

Right?

*

It is two hours later.

We are in a subway train. We are underground. We are not moving.

Martha has started rhythmically pounding her head into the window beside us. Which is a nice change. Before, she'd been pounding MY head into the window beside us.

Today, of all days, was the day that the T had an electrical problem.

A word of advice…should you travel…and should you travel with us…do not do so if the trip involves any kind of mechanical conveyance.

Unless, of course, you are the sort of individual who greatly enjoys IRS audits and/or rubbing your teeth on the sidewalk.


*

We finally get out at a station and charge upstairs. We are several stops short of where we want to be, but we figure that we'll never get to David's graduation if we stay on the train. "We'll get a cab," I say, cheerfully, doing my best to Maintain A Positive Attitude. And Be a Good Husband. And prevent Martha from slaughtering me where I stand. "We'll be there in no time."

Except…

Except…

To "get a cab" you have to first "find" a cab.

And on that particular day, every taxi in the greater Boston area, plus Brookline and associated communities, had recently invested in a Klingon cloaking device of the highest quality.

"We'll be there in no time," I say, again, while Martha sizes up available walls for potential head banging. Whether mine or hers, I leave to your imagination.

*

Finally…thank God!...we got a cab. Of course, I had to leap into traffic and drag it back to the curb with my teeth, but we got it.

Then, we're off. The chatty little driver told us all about traffic in Boston and how the streets are weird and the pedestrians are all nuts but, not to worry, he was a trained professional.

Oh, he added, and by the way, for our convenience, we could now pay for the trip with our credit card using the newly installed reader in the back of the cab.

We looked and, sure enough, there's a reader in place. And, since we may need cash to pay for dinner, I figured, what the heck? I'll use it.

We arrived at the theater where David's graduation was about to happen. I ran my card through the reader and…

"It's not going through," the driver said.

"What?" I said, as we 're about to bolt out the door.

"It's not going through." He pointed at a terminal he has in the front. It shows lines and numbers and arrows, all moving and twitching, but none of 'em going any place in particular.

"What does that mean?" I said.

"I don't know," he said. "They just installed this thing yesterday."

"Well," I said, "I'm sure it will go through in a minute, and we're in a terrible hurry, so…"

He looked at me. He didn't exactly snarl. It was more subtle than that. It was more your basic unspoken, non-verbal response which says, louder than words, "If you think you're going to stiff me for the fare when your d*man fake credit card doesn't work out, well, you're even stupider than you look. And that's saying something."

"Ah," I said. "Er," I added.

It seemed insightful.


*

"Okay," I say. "Martha, why you don't go in and watch the ceremony. I'll stay here and we'll work this out."

She looks at me for a half a moment, and then, uneasily, leaves the cab. I remain sitting there while the little terminal thing on the driver's dash blinks and flashes and makes cute little grinding noises. Sort of like the sound the Tin Woodman's head made when he was thinking very, very hard. Or maybe that was George W. Bush. Hard to tell. I get them mixed up all the time.

Just then, the driver looked up and says, "Oh." He hits something on the side the terminal. It goes "ca-chunk," and then, with a burp, prints out a receipt. "There you go,"

I stagger out into the sunlight. "Okay," I think. "We're home free." I head up the steps into the theater. In the lobby, I find myself confronting a nice lady with a frozen smile.

"Ticket," she says. "Please," she adds, after a second.

"Ticket?" I say.

"Ticket," she agrees.

"As in the little piece of paper that lets you get into the graduation?"

"Exactly,"

"As in the little piece of paper which is in my wife's purse and she's already inside?"

"Uh-huh,"

"Oh," I say, in a very small voice.


*


Just then, a miracle occurred.

The nice lady with the frozen smile was called aside by an usher with some problem or other. I was, therefore, able to sneak in. God will surely smite me for my transgression. But, heck, it was worth it. And what's a few decades in Purgatory between friends? I'm particularly looking forward to the boiling oil and hot pinchers. I understand they're very stimulating.

So, finally, after everything, I went up the top floor of the theater, and after a bit of searching, found Martha. We sat down and waited.

Then…


*

We heard his name.

And there…there!...he was.

He crossed the stage. He approached the podium. A man and woman greeted him. They gave him a single white flower…his school's version of a diploma. He took it. He turned. He faced the audience briefly. Did he see us? I don't know. But we saw him.

Oh, Lord, did we see him.

And then he walked across the stage and vanished into the wings.

Martha held my hand.

I held hers.

We did not move…for a very long time.


*

We met David afterwards and went for dinner at a Thai restaurant he knew—name of '"Chilli Duck," no less. Martha took a picture of him standing in front of the restaurant. It shows this astonishingly handsome young man, casually dressed, a flower in one hand.

Where did the little boy go? The one used to be?

Well, if I look hard enough, I can still see him. I always will be able to. It is the special talent of parents.


*

Afterwards, we went home. Magically and maddeningly, the trip was smooth as silk. The trains ran perfectly. The car started right away. There were no more delays. It was as though the tension had drained from the universe, and we were simply carried along with the current of things. We arrived at the house and, a little later, slept without dreams.

And that's pretty much the end of this story.

In a way, it is also the end of yet another, larger story—that is, the part of our life that spanned our son's education and very young manhood. He will always be with us. We will always be with him. He may go to graduate school. He may not. But, one way or another, these things will be different from what came before.

And we will be different…the three of us.

We will change, in little ways or big, but we will change.

I wonder who we will become.


*

Well…

I can't tell the future. I can't say what David will choose to become. I can't say when, or indeed, if I will get the full time teaching job. I can't say when Martha will or won't decide to leave her university. I can't say what my parents' future will be.

But there are some things I know will be true.

We will hold fast to one another. We will love one another. No matter what…no matter what the train…no matter where it carries us.

We will hold fast.

Forever.


*

Onward and upward.




Copyright © 2010 Michael Jay Tucker

"I'm tired...sooooo tired...." insert depressing music here

Hello, Everyone,

So, what can I say, I'm still not posting here very much. Mea Culpa. I'm so sorry. And feel free to whack me with a big stick when you get a chance.

And I wish I had a good excuse…like, maybe that I'd been kidnapped by aliens or hit by a blimp. But, alas, 'tis not the case. I've just been plain busy. I've got this book project I'm working on…a kind of a history-travel book about several cities…I just finished a 76 page chapter on Boston.

And I've got papers to grade. And classes to teach. And freelance gigs to find. And I'm still looking for a full time job. And…oh, yes, there are those voodoo dolls I'm doing for use on a certain millionaire investment bankers ..and maybe a certain dissertation committee…or ex-committee, as the case may be. And those are just taking far more time and effort than I'd expected.

So, I haven't been posting here.

But, not to worry, because, you see, if I were posting here on a regular basis, and telling you all about my life, all I'd be saying would be, "Cripes, I'm overworked, underpaid, unappreciated, disrespected, overtaxed, under-medicated, hyper-tense, humiliated, and, by the way, I'm so tired that when I travel the airlines charge me extra for the bags under my eyes."

So…when you feel the need to hear from me, well, just go look in the mirror.

If you are in any way like 99.9% of us today, you'll get exactly the same message…and you won't even have to boot up your computer.

Talk about efficiency.

Onward and upward.


Copyright © 2010 Michael Jay Tucker

Wonders of Wall Street

Hi, everyone,

Well, I'm still not posting here as often as I'd hoped. And I still haven't completed my last entry on the New Mexico series from the summer.

But, like I said before, things are complicated. I'm working on four different book projects, teaching three classes, doing some freelance, and, occasionally, just as an exercise in futility, looking for additional jobs.

Which brings me to my topic for the evening. I've been fascinated by the way that the financial establishment has responded to the economic meltdown…which, by the way, was almost entirely its fault. The bankers and gurus and Wall Street wonders all plunged us into hell, and we've had to pull them …and us… out of the abyss with tons of money and lots of effort.

And, by the way, to keep the system running, all us normal people had to take major hits…which is why so many of us are out of work, and many more of us are under-employed, and we none of us are really happy about it.

The kinky thing? Go talk to some of the people who aren't working, and you'll probably find they blame themselves. God damnit, we say, if only we'd been smarter or worked harder or whatever, then we'd still have a pay check.

Which, of course, is absurb…because we didn't have anything to do with the crisis.

But, the people who did get us into this mess? The bankers and gurus and Wall Street wonders? The people who put us on the unemployment lines and destroyed a lot of lives and careers? The people who were at fault?

How do they feel about it?

Why they're just happy as a clam, thanks, and they're taking big money bonuses at tax payer expense and "economizing" by going to St. Tropez for only six weeks this year.

So…

To help me deal with my feelings regarding these people, I have made a little clay figure to represent them. See it?

Now, here's my response to their behavior.

SQUISH!

There we go. I feel much better.

Don't you?

Onward and upward.


Copyright © 2010 Michael Jay Tucker

It's my birthday and I'll kvetch if I wanna

Hi, Everyone,

Sorry I've been so lax about doing my Xcargo blog postings. But, well, things have just been fantastically complicated over the last few weeks. I've had classes to teach, lectures to prepare, taxes to get ready... I threw my back act. And I had a bout of something called "benign positional vertigo," which is perfectly harmless, but you feel sorta like Dorothy in the tornado except Toto bailed out for a Dramamine someplace back around Nebraska.

But, today, I simply have to start posting again. And I've got reason. It's my birthday. And I'm now fifty-three years old.

Which means I'm not 22 years old any more. And I have to wear reading glasses. And I'm taking Lipitor, and folic acid, and high blood pressure meds, and baby aspirin …once a day.

So, let's celebrate. Ready?

Whoop-de-freaking-doo.

Onward and upward.







Copyright © 2010 Michael Jay Tucker

Scott Brown

Hello, Everyone,

Well, first of all, sorry I've been out of touch. Things got a bit hairy for a while and I wasn't able to get to my Xcargo-ing.

But, now, I’m back from New Mexico and I'm ready for my first ever posting for 2010.

Specifically, what I want to talk about today is the recent election by which my home state, Massachusetts, selected Scot Brown, lawyer and former nude model, to fill the Senate seat formerly held by the late Ted Kennedy.

I know that some of you have asked for my reaction to this development. And, therefore, today, I'm going to try to give you that.

So, my reaction is…

ARGH !!!!!

I think that sums it up well, don't you?

Onward and upward.


Copyright © 2010 Michael Jay Tucker

Off To New Mexico

Season's Greetings, plus one sad, sick bastard

B52 Strikes and Armed Pro-Lifers

Linx

"Judge To Hear Key Motions In Kan. Murder Trial," by Kathy Lohr, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121746158&ft=1&f=1003

"Judge says no to 'necessity defense' for George Tiller's alleged killer," by Justin Kendall, http://blogs.pitch.com/plog/2009/12/judge_says_no_to_necessity_defense_for_george_tillers_alleged_killer.php

hair cuts from the west

the linx

Texas parents, school tangle over boy's long locks — http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jHTRVxrCriQ0q9mjS5cP9NkcjONgD9CL6PO02

Texas parents battle school over son's long locks — http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-12-17-texas-school-hair_N.htm

Texas parents battle school over son's long locks — http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/texas-parents-battle-school-over-son-s-long-locks-17178226

New Mexico #9: Sadness

New Mexico #9: Sadness


So, once again, I turn to New Mexico.

This one isn't going to be so funny, either.

It will start out light-hearted…or, at least, merely melancholy. But, then, gradually, it will slide away into the dark.

This is just to warn you.

*


You will recall that I'm writing a series about my trip to New Mexico last summer. Last time we had just gone to lunch at a restaurant at Santa Fe. My father had, with his sly humor, vast intelligence, and endless reserve of low-level sadism had just terrified a snotty, self-important woman of the sort described in song and fable as a Rich Bitch. A pleasant time was had by all. Except for the Bitch. But, then, she asked for what she got. And deserved worse.

Anyway, we ate. The sandwiches were good. We finished and then Martha and I spent some time on our own looking for a graduation present for my son—he was, you'll recall, just about to get his degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.

So, Martha and I shopped. We didn't find anything we thought he'd really like. In the end, we got him a genuinely beautiful copper wall hanging form artist who lives in Albuquerque. I think he liked it. But who can tell? You give the gift and hope. It is a wise child that knows its mother. There is no parent quite wise enough to understand the child.

Anyway, so browsed a few more shops and, next we knew, it was time to catch the train. We met up with my parents and took the little van to the station.

Again, everything was magical. The station was wondrously clean. The conductors were young and cheerful. The cars were comfortable and new. We boarded and, shortly after, we were on our way.

At first, the magic continued as we went on our way. The sun was only then beginning its slow slant toward the horizon, and we'd have full daylight all the way to Albuquerque. Yet, still, everything…the mountains, the towns, the Pueblos, the adobe buildings we passed…began to take on that rose-honey color you see, sometimes, in the late afternoons of summer.

There was a crowd in the car, but, at first, people were quiet…as though no one dared to break the peace of the moment, or look away from the windows, for fear of missing something. The mountains and hills went past us, faintly glowing in the light, then we were in the Pueblos again, their streets peaceful and empty, the beautiful dome-shaped ovens beside the homes…

And then…

HE started talking.


*

You may remember way back, several New Mexico episodes ago, I mentioned that on our return from Santa Fe, we encountered a young lawyer on the train who began to lecture a pair of perfect strangers on the train about the bread ovens…and then wouldn't shut up.

Well, it was right then that the chap put in his appearance. We were not far out of Santa Fe when all of a sudden, we heard him address the party in the seat next to him. "Those are ovens," he said, cheerfully. "They bake bread in them."

His voice had a collegiate sound to it…the kind of voice you hear in a sports bar, or a bus and he's on the cell phone… loud, maddeningly chipper, and as inescapable as gamma rays at Chernobyl. He was the kind of guy to whom you'd love to respond in an appropriate way, but he's too big to hit and you don't have a chainsaw.

Somehow, he'd decided that the two women and one man next to him were tourists who desperately needed his wisdom. "It's great. You ought to try it while you're here. They call it fry bread and…"

The people tried to get a word in edgewise, "Well, that is, we—"

"But it's very rich. They cook it with butter or lard so you can't eat too much of it. And…"

"Well, we know, because—"

"And sometimes you can't get it in Albuquerque. But I think they sell it in Old Town. You really have to visit Old Town. It's…

"Because we—"

"It's a great spot if you're just starting out in New Mexico. Or if you…"

"WE KNOW! WE LIVE HERE!"

"Really?" And then, without missing a beat or displaying a trace of embarrassment, he changed the subject and was off on yet another lecture, this one on how convenient it was for him to commute from his home to Santa Fe…thanks to the train.

The three miserable souls beside him sank slowly in their seats, knowing the grim fate that awaited them.

*

He talked non-stop all the way to the station. I don't remember most of what he said…thank goodness…but pieces did stick in my memory. There was the long discourse on how boring the train ride really was, "I mean, all you have to look at is the scenery." But, he assured his victims, he could usually check email with his iPhone, so that made it a little better. So he could "get work done," instead of just "stare at rocks."

But, he continued, the train was a great way to commute. He got up at five in the morning, was at the train by six, and be in the office by seven. And then he'd catch the train home and be back by no later than nine. "It's great!"

He was on the way home early tonight because his daughter was having her birthday and he wanted to be there for it. She was, I gathered, six or seven. Usually he got home after she'd gone to bed, but today he was going to make an exception. "We're having a pony," he explained, "and a clown."

From there he was off on to the topic of child-rearing…on which, it seemed, he was a great authority. He'd seen some video on the subject, and read a book, and it was going to make everything just ducky for him while raising his daughter—the same one, that is, who was asleep when he left the house, and then was back in bed when he got home.

The theme of the book was that all human interactions are, in fact, based on commercial relations—business, in other words. So, "she doesn't get an allowance," he said proudly. "She gets commissions."

This, he explained, made all the difference. How so, it wasn't clear to me, but he assured his listeners that it did. And, besides, it would teach her to exist in a world in which nothing happens until someone sells something. Even better, "it eliminates all the tears." The girl would keep track of her commissions, and when they went to the toy store or where ever, she could buy only what she had enough commissions to purchase.

I listened. I wondered, Should I Warn Him? Should I, the father of a 25-year-old man (who knows the score) tell him what was coming? What will happen in ten years, when that girl would be sixteen, full of hormones, chasing boys, always on the phone, and telling her father exactly where he could stick his commissions?

I thought about it.

No. He'd never believe me.

In the words of the poet, there are some things that cannot be explained to virgins in either words or pictures.

*

Now, we begin our journey away from the light…


*

As I look at the material above, I realize I've been trying to be funny in this posting. At least a little. But, it hasn't felt quite right. It seemed forced.

Partly, of course, it was because of the lawyer—tall and blond, successful, every bit what this culture says a successful man should be. Or, woman, for that matter.

And, yet, in the end, he was sort of tragic. How little he understood of the world! How little it touched him. That great and magnificent world, with its mountains and desert, stretching off to infinity, and which he could have seen if only he'd looked.

And his child! I was joking—sort of—when I talked about what would happen when she was sixteen. But, it was perfectly true. Indeed, I understated the case. What will she think of this man, in ten years or twenty, when she looks back on him? The father who only appeared with a pony and a clown?

And what of him? What will he feel in forty years? When he is old? And he suddenly discovers that, by God, life is not like a corporation? That you cannot hold stock in it? Nor get a promotion by being in the office at seven? That, in the end, he who dies with the most toys, is still dead?

*

Ah, but there's the rub. We are taught this. We are taught to sacrifice all …everything in our lives!...if we "want to get ahead." It is unmanly to do otherwise. It is un-feminist to do otherwise ("you wouldn't say that if she were a man"). It is virtuous to be in the office at seven (or even six-thirty) and stay there deep into the night, your flesh growing pasty and pale under the fluorescents. Or minty green in the light of spread sheets and the powerpoints.


*


How much braver, stronger, wiser is the man or woman who defers their pleasures, their accomplishments, yes, even their fondest dreams. Who, once having the child, understands that this…the infant!...is their future, their destiny, their career. Who knows that the promotions will not come, the move to "the coast" and the corner office will be denied, because that is the nature of the bargain we have with life.

We are offered children, we are given the option of parenthood, and if we accept, then, well, the price is high. It is not happy. It is not easy. But it is the price.

The alternative is to be a stranger to your own children, and to court their justifiable hatred.

*

Let us then admit the greatness of the Small: the husbands, the wives, the stayers at homes, the worker-bees, the million-millions of men and women who are held in such thorough contempt by Hollywood and Manhattan and New England college towns.

And without whom the world would end in misery and dust.


*

Now… we move to the next part of my story. Less happy still.

*

The young professional wasn't the only reason for my sadness that day.

As we moved closer to my boyhood home, to Albuquerque, the delicate magic of the country, and the plastic wonder of the theme park known as Santa Fe, began to evaporate. The empty lots, the abandoned buildings, the dirty building, the long walls of concrete with the vast burden of gang graffiti and spray-painted obscenities…the features of a real city in this post-industrial age began to appear.

Then, we were back in the station at downtown Albuquerque. The declining light, which had seemed gentle and kind in the desert, was now merely dim. It played whitely over the concrete and the brick of the empty city, deserted on a Sunday evening.

Only the street people—and the police—were there.


*

We pulled into the station. We gathered up our jackets and purchases. The lawyer…thank heavens!...was gone.

We headed for the door. I led the way, for some reason. I don't remember why. Martha was behind me. My mother and father were behind her.

I came to the door of the train. There was a sort of bridge that led from the train to the platform. I crossed it, looking down just long enough to see that between the platform and train there was a deep gap. I could see a gravel surface below, the tracks, and the huge wheels of the train.

Martha joined me. Not thinking, we started ahead.

There was a woman's scream behind us.

My father had fallen.

*

I whirled and ran back. He was half on the bridge, one leg was over the side, down into the gap. A woman passenger and a conductor were holding on to him, desperately tight. The conductor pulled him up…finally…and I got to him.

He stood unsteadily in front of me. My mother was at his side, shaking.


*

He was embarrassed. He wouldn't stay. "Just lost my balance there." He led the way out of the crowd, thanking the woman and the conductor, and hurrying away from the scene.

*

How much pain he must have felt— the leg over the edge, the body on the bridge, straining to not to fall, the muscles contacting and tight.

He would not sit. He would not rest.

*

My father…

*

And that wasn't enough, was it? Not enough for fate and time. Not enough for a symbol. The universe wasn't finished with us.

*

We walked toward the station lobby. To get there, we had to take one route…the pathway that led from the station landing to the lobby building.

And as we turned the corner, we realized that there was a crowd of police and EMTs at the end of the path. In the street, we could see the blinking lights of emergency vehicles.

And they were kneeling and working on something on the ground.


*

We came closer. We had no choice. There was nowhere else to go.


*

It was one of the street people. He was on the ground. On the concrete. They were around him. The EMTS and the police. They circled him.

His flesh was dead white.


*

We went past him. We had no choice. There was nothing else to do.


*

We made our way past the police cars and the ambulance and the EMT truck. We made our way to the car where it was parked in the garage.

I drove us home.


*

We got to their house. We had dinner. It was my father's famous spaghetti. He's a very good cook. He served it cheerfully.

And, then, cheerfully, he asked us if we'd like dessert. Cheerfully, he brought out ice cream and cookies.

*

Then…

*

Then, the next morning, he cheerfully took me aside.

And cheerfully told me where all the family records were.

In case I should ever need them.

*

I didn't weep until later, in the guest room, with the door closed.

So no one would see or hear me.

*

Until next time.
























Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker

Salem 1

trust

snowman kit

The quotes in Question

Among the quotes in question:

1) "If the antiabortion movement took a tenth of the energy they put into noisy theatrics and devoted it to improving the lives of children who have been born into lives of poverty, violence, and neglect, they could make a world shine."


and

2) "...there is no poison on earth more potent, nor half so deadly, as apartial truth mixed with passion."

Quotes

Do a search for "quotes Michael Jay Tucker" and see what you get...

Me, Publishing, Self-pity, good stuff like that

Michael Mugs

I promise I'll stop soon...

a morning walk

A little experiment...in video

New Mexico #8: Fantasy

It's been awhile since I've written about the trip to New Mexico. It wasn't that I didn't want to come here and write. It's just that life has been…complicated…

But you know all about that, don’t you? All our lives are complicated in this curious age—this age in which we live on the run, this job to that, that place to this, and, in the end, we find that (somehow) we are like Alice's Queen. Moving very fast. Yet not moving at all.

So…


*

Last time, I talked about my growing sense of unease as we walked through Santa Fe. I was having memories of people and situations I'd found in that town but which were not particular pleasant.

Also, I was experiencing a certain sense of unreality, as though I were not really there at all, or else the city wasn't.

Actually, on reflection, I realized I had good reason for that. Parts of Santa Fe aren't real. They are as illusionary as the Matrix, and twice as tenacious.

Oh, don't get me wrong. Much of the city—almost all of the city!—is perfectly real. You don't have to walk far from the Square before you come to the real, living Santa Fe. A few meters, and you discover houses and condos, offices and schools, places where people live and work, and send their children to be educated. Admittedly, there are fewer such places than there used to be (with each passing year it becomes more expensive to live in Santa Fe. Property values soar and residents flee to the cheaper suburbs, or even to Albuquerque), but they exist all the same.

But, the Square, and the few blocks around it…they belong to visitors and those who sell to them. And, come let's face facts, that leads to a touch of the fantastic. We do not travel to distant places, nor pay inflated prices, for the joy of dealing with the same discomforts we meet at home. Unless we are an "adventure tourist" (and more about that in a moment), we charge up the Visa cards and suffer through the lines at airport security so that we may escape our lives. For our money, we want to be someplace where the sidewalks are clean, the meals come without our cooking them, the beds are made by magic…well, by maids, but it feels that way…and the help behind the counter is always smiling. In fact, it would be better if the help wasn't human at all. A large cartoon mouse in top hat and tails, his face frozen forever in an idiot's grin, would be best of all.

We pay, in other words, to inhabit an alternative reality, and at those prices, we damn well better get it.

Oh, and the Adventure Tourist? He, or she, inhabits the most unreal reality of all. She, or he, goes off into the wilderness on a pre-packaged thrill ride, dismissing as cowards those who might propose caution, and, then returns home with tails of a life changing experience…of terrors met…of confidence gained.

Except…

If the bungee cord should ever actually break, the bear actually elect to feast, the Iranian border guards really decide to fire…

They are so terribly, terribly offended.

*

And, understand, there is nothing wrong with this. There is nothing wrong with the falseness of tourist bubbles, in spite of the commandments of academics who tell us we should hate Disneyland (and by extension, fairy tales). People who say such things are those whose lives are sufficiently removed from daily struggle, tedium, and Quiet Desperation that they cannot understand the need for relief. They sit in their offices at Universities, grinding out turgid prose and unreadable books, failing always to understand that their comfortable, tenured lives are as fantastic and faintly ridiculous as a college kid in a Goofy suit, working his way through summer vacation.

But, that said, such places…like the Square at Santa Fe…will always have a whiff of the artificial, of unreality, of emptiness. At their best, they are like a thrill ride or an Imax movie. You buy your ticket, you lose yourself for a time, and then you walk away, relieved and exhilarated—but never believing that you have dealt with reality.

Or, at their worst, at their very worst, they leave you with the kind of vague disquiet you have sometimes in fever dreams, when you know you're dreaming, and that all you see is manufactured by Id and Unconscious, yet you do not choose to wake.


*


But…anyway.

We were going from the La Fonda, the hotel where we'd rejoined my parents, to a new restaurant my parents had discovered. My parents hunt restaurants the way that Teddy Roosevelt hunted lions and tigers and bears (oh my). They seek them out, somehow, noticing tracks in the hard soil, testing the air for the scent, and pursue.

And, amazingly, 99 times out of a 100, their discoveries are good. They always have at least three new trophies when we come to visit, the chefs' hats on mounted the wall, the leftovers stuffed and on display over the mantle.

That day, my parents were taking us to a new sandwich place they'd found. My father described it as half restaurant, half art gallery, and he led us out of the Square and up a side street. Soon, we found ourselves outside a smallish establishment with white adobe walls and blue wood trim. It could have been Greek, mysteriously transplanted by UFOs from Aegean shores. We entered. Inside the walls were decorated with various paintings from local artists. Some were good. Some were repellant. But, they were from Santa Fe. Therefore, by definition, they must be wonderful.

Under the paintings were the tables and the chairs. Men and women, and a few children, sat and talked and ate. A tall blond man materialized and asked what we wanted. My father said a table and give the total population of our party. A mere four. The tall man said it shouldn't be long. We stood in the little space before the cash register and waited while other customers came and went.

Martha and my mother fell into some conversation, I don't know about what. My father and I talked about … I believe we talked about physics. He is a physicist. A retired one but still active in the field. We were talking fusion power, and whether it were possible for the country to develop it, and if so at what cost.

And about the time I looked up and saw a woman come into the restaurant. She was, perhaps, in her late 30s or early 40s. Very stylish. Attractive. Well dressed. Large sunglasses. Short skirt. Peasant blouse. Large leather purse. She reeked, in other words, of money.

What sort of money? Who can say? Vice president of marketing on vacation money. Or real estate entrepreneur in New Mexico money. Or corporate lawyer between cases money. Or even, yes, affluent suburban wife from Connecticut money (no. Really. A few still exist. Even in this day of dual incomes and fast-track careers).

But, in any case, money. And she came into the restaurant, glanced at us, swept past, and went to the counter where the tall man stood guard. She spoke to him. I couldn't hear what she said over the sound of the crowd, nor what he replied, but there was some tension in the air. His hands came up as if to communicate something, or defend himself from a blow. Hers remained by her side, hands tight around the strap of her leather purse. Then, somehow, something was resolved. I half-heard, half read the woman's lips well enough to detect "then take-out." The man's face softened in relief. He hurried away toward the kitchen.

She paused for a moment by the counter, then drifted back to where the rest of us stood waiting for our tables. She looked at me. She looked at my father.

Always friendly, always open, he smiled and said, "Hello."

She frowned. She mumbled "'Lo." He was not important. He was old and probably senile and didn't know to speak only when spoken to. She glanced away. She stood, still in her sunglasses in the restaurant's shadowy interior, and looked out into the street.

My father eyed her. He began to smile more broadly. I knew what was coming. It wasn't going to be pretty. But, I thought, she'd brought it on herself.

*

"So," he said to her, smiling, eyes twinkling, as merry as Santa Claus on the day before noel, "isn't it a lovely day?"

She looked at him, half in surprise, half in distaste. Had he really spoken to her? Had this strange, miserable creature actually addressed her?

"I mean," he continued, still cheery, "the light, and everything. But not too hot."

She looked him up and down. I knew what she saw. He is a small man, now (how did that happen? I remember him being so tall). His hair is white, long, and wild, seeking new discoveries around his ears, his forehead, the back of his neck, uncontrolled and vastly energetic, if somewhat thinner than it once was. And he has a beard now. Also white. Pointed. Not quite a goatee, but not quite anything else either. In one light it makes him look a little like Colonel Sanders. Ah, but in another, like Mephistopheles.

Her cosmetic tinted lenses flicked up to his face. You could see her logic as clearly as if her head were made of glass. "If I say nothing," she thought, "will he go away?"

But he didn't. I knew that light in his eyes. The eyes so cheery. So merry. So mild. So…inexplicably bright and hard.

"Well," he continued, "where are you from? We're from Albuquerque. My son and his wife"—indicating me—"they came all the way from Boston."

Even through her sunglasses, you could see the discomfort. "I…ah…I'm from California."

"Really? Where-abouts? North or south?"

The cosmetic lenses panned down, like a camera trying for a Dutch Angle. I knew what she was seeing then, too. His clothing. He affects satiny sports jackets, unzipped to reveal the white t-shirt. His pants? Inevitably jeans or khakis, just a size or two off, just a decade or so out of fashion. Athletic shoes, beaten soft from long use.

"Um…south. Las Angeles."

"Ah," beaming like a street light on a winter night, "we have relatives in Las Angeles. Maybe you know them…" He named one of my uncles.

The woman took a step back, a slight tremor shaking her body.

"No, wait," he continued. "Johnny's been dead for about two years ago now. I keep forgetting that. And, besides, he moved to Reno in '79. Have you ever been to Reno?"

Even through her sunglasses, you could see the panic in her eyes.

"Well, doesn't matter. You're from L.A.? We used to drive there…when he was little" —he indicated me. "That was a lot of fun." He turned to me again. "Remember that time we went in 1968? We where in that green van." He looked at her again, explaining. "No insulation in it. You ever try to drive across Arizona in the middle of summer without air conditioning? Yes siree! It was soooo hot…"

Her back was now literally against the wall. She held her purse tightly in front of her, like a shield. You could see her fingers digging into the leather.

"And we got to the border with California. They stopped us at the state line. Do they still do that? They used to check your car to make certain you didn't have fruits or vegetables that might bring in plant diseases. Anyway, I can always remember, the guard looking into our van, me in my t-shirt, my wife in shorts, and him"—me—"not looking much better."

She swallowed. Her teeth were clinched.

"And we hadn't had a bath for a while. I mean, we were camping, so how could we?"

Little drops of sweat were forming on her forehead.

"And the guard looked into the van and said, 'Oh, my God.' We must have looked awfu—…"

The tall blond man appeared with a take-out bag. The woman dashed past my father with her credit card already out. A moment after that, she was running toward the door.

"Have a nice day," my father said, as she went. "Great talking to you."

The door closed behind her with a bang.

My father smiled once more.

*

And lunch was quite good actually. We ate with a healthy appetite.

Then, we went to a couple more galleries. And, after that, it was time to head for the train, and home.

What we did not know was what would be waiting for us at the station.

But that's for next time.

*

Onward and upward.


















Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker

I confess

Yes, I confess it. I have been dreadfully remiss about my blog. Xcargo has not seen me for 'lo these many weeks.

Forgive me? My only excuse is that I've been teaching three classes and I'm a bit overwhelmed by the grading. But, I promise, I'll return with yet more of Santa Fe.

That said, here's a little something to keep us going.

Have you noticed? All the clamor and fear about health care continues unabated …but, most mysteriously, the stories of men and women coming to town meetings with guns have gone away. Oh, yes, there's still yelling and screaming, but not guns, and not the more or less overt threats of violence.

It's almost as if someone flipped a switch. As if someone, somewhere, realized that this tactic was actually having negative effects… that it was frightening people.

Which makes one wonder, does it not? If someone could turn it off that way, then doesn't that mean someone turned it on in the first place? That someone, somewhere, created the whole thing… for their own selfish purposes…with lies and deceit.

Which, in turn, makes one wonder just exactly what they will do next.

And how dreadful it will be…